The ICC today unveiled the most comprehensive range of social media activations for a global cricket event ahead of the ICC World Twenty20 Sri Lanka 2012 which begins on Tuesday 18 September in Hambantota.

Using the official event Twitter hashtag, #wt20, fans will be encouraged through the global broadcast feed, produced by ESPN STAR Sports for the ICC, to share their thoughts on the action and make this one of the most talked about cricket events ever to date.

Exclusive behind the scenes photo and video content will be released on both www.facebook.com/cricketicc, which already has almost 1.3 million fans, and through @cricketicc which is followed by over 425,000 supporters across the globe. Score updates will also be available for all matches from @wt20scores, which will provide regular updates from all matches.

Recognising the global popularity of cricket and allowing it to reach new fans in South Asia, Twitter has launched a special event page in partnership with the ICC on its own platform – the first time this has happened for a major global cricket event – following the success of its event pages with #nascar and #olympics earlier this year. The #wt20 event page, which can be viewed at www.twitter.com/#wt20 contains the very best tweets from organisers, players, media and fans.

The ICC has also been working with Facebook on this and other special events, including the LG ICC Awards, where fans voted for the LG People’s Choice Awards via a Facebook application, and will be rolling out new Facebook integrations on the ICC Cricket 360 weekly magazine programme in the coming months.

In addition, the ICC is working with its commercial partners to provide a range of incentives to talk about the ICC World Twenty20 on social media. One of the highlights of the activations is a ‘flock to unlock’ partnership between Emirates Airline and the ICC using the #wt20. Fans will be rewarded for passing various milestones using the #wt20 by unlocking fantastic prizes, including business class flights and Skywards miles, which they will have a chance to win through entering competitions that will be run simultaneously on the Emirates Airline and ICC Facebook pages.

Other exciting visualisations on the official event website, available at www.icc-cricket.com, will include a leaderboard, which will track the most talked about teams and players, presenting a unique way for fans to follow the most talked about moments of the event.

Further social media activations will be unveiled during the course of the tournament.